after my last boat got stolen i thought i would venture off and build my own. i started this project sometime around august of last year and finished it up yesterday. boat was mostly complete for hunting season but made a few changes after season and finally laid down mossy oak shadow grass camo and clearcoat, finished the hydroturf yesterday. looks like a brand new boat now been welding steel most of my life but this was the first time i ever welded aluminum. its a 1748 with a huntdeck, went with a 3/16 bottom and sides for the mine fields in northeast texas, triple taper chine. motor is a 35 GTR modded by SETX performance. also built the trailer as well. had some pics with it during season with the blind on and hid but lost all my pics on my computer.

from start to complete finish about 7 or 8 months but i took my time because i didnt wanna screw up plus i didnt work on it at all from early teal to the middle of february. it was basically done before early teal. the only thing i changed was the grab bar and finished the extended deck hatch. im only home on weekends so it was hard to find time to work on it and have family time. i got most of it done when i had 5 straight days off, it went from basically a bare hull to where i could ride around the lake in it. once i got it to that stage i just wanted to ride around so i didnt work on it much. if i build aother one i could do it in about 3-4 weeks since i know how to go about all of it.

duckkillerclyde wrote:I don't really understand what you are saying. I average 150 ducks 10 geese a year. It takes me 3 cases of shells to do it. I always figure if the birds are leaving anyways, you might as well try.

What's a rough estimate for your material costs and time to build? I'm curious cause I built an 18x48 out of wood / glass and wonder what the cost difference would have been.

There is definitely some sweet satisfaction when your catching and killing out of boat you made with your own two hands.

about 4k maybe a little bit more in just aluminum material, 750 of that was labor for the place i got the material from to make all the crimps, cut it to length, cut the rake out, cut the transom angle i wanted which to me was well worth the money and saved me alot of time.

Where did you get all the aluminum from and how did you figure out how you wanted the hull cut if you don't mind sharing? I have seriously considered doing a build like this but you knocked it out of the park

im guessing you mean huntdeck on the very rear of the boat? if so its not a gas tank, its just a part of the boat that has its own purpose like getting in boat alot easier when wading because its lower to the water and the main purpose is that its a perfect place to have for a dog platform. our dogs hunt from there and they are out of the boat and its easier to get em back on the boat back there and they wont get everybody wet inside the boat. underneath that is open and i hide my battery and bilge pump underneath to keep out of the way. its also nice because on a scissor blind the motor is 18" further back and all the way out of the blind. i could go on and on of the reasons why i like the huntdeck. my gas access is inside the front extended deck along with a dual bank charger and my trolling motor battery. to fill up the tank if you look in the picture of the front deck you will see a black circle cap that screws off and i have access to the tank.

here is whats underneath the huntdeck

tank access after cap is removed

extended deck hatch

extended deck hatch opens up to access the tank, charger and trolling motor battery. not a very good pic but you can get the idea

flightstopper wrote:Where did you get all the aluminum from and how did you figure out how you wanted the hull cut if you don't mind sharing? I have seriously considered doing a build like this but you knocked it out of the park

i ordered everything from uncle j boats in morgan city, LA and he got it from his place. basically i just told him exactly how i wanted it laid out, told him i wanted the front to be 27" wide and a 3" sch 40 pipe bumper, 48 inch bottom with a triple taper, wanted my hundeck to be 18" long and a 9" drop, gatortail needs a 20 degree transom so i had em cut it at that angle, wanted a 6 foot rake. just told him all that and he sent me a CAD drawing and i reviewed all the measurements and told him thats what i wanted, couple weeks and i picked it up at his place when all of it was ready. there are several aluminum places that do this in la just have to call and tell em exactly how you want it and what thickness and they will get it done.

couple of pics of my boat blind, its a shaggy blind from mudbuddy. i normally build my own blind basically just like this one but i won that blind in the mudbuddy christmas contest so i just used there frame. only have a few pics of the blind when i just put it on and its not grassed up any at all, i lost all my hunting pics of the blind in the field

flightstopper wrote:Where did you get all the aluminum from and how did you figure out how you wanted the hull cut if you don't mind sharing? I have seriously considered doing a build like this but you knocked it out of the park

i ordered everything from uncle j boats in morgan city, LA and he got it from his place. basically i just told him exactly how i wanted it laid out, told him i wanted the front to be 27" wide and a 3" sch 40 pipe bumper, 48 inch bottom with a triple taper, wanted my hundeck to be 18" long and a 9" drop, gatortail needs a 20 degree transom so i had em cut it at that angle, wanted a 6 foot rake. just told him all that and he sent me a CAD drawing and i reviewed all the measurements and told him thats what i wanted, couple weeks and i picked it up at his place when all of it was ready. there are several aluminum places that do this in la just have to call and tell em exactly how you want it and what thickness and they will get it done.